Border Town Girl

by John D. MacDonald

  I wondered how many times they had gone over their lines. Perhaps the size of the audience surprised them a bit. Their act had not run true—not to me. But it had sounded right to the others. I could see that.

  Linda had not rehearsed being sick. Perhaps that is the single thing in all of it that truly came as a surprise to her. How carefully she must have searched the beach, before turning the gun on Stella. Through the telescopic sight the hair lines would cross on that fair hair. How long did she hesitate before she pulled the trigger? Or did she hesitate not at all, while Jeff, jaw muscles bulging, body tense, sat and looked out into the Gulf, awaiting the snapping sound of the shot which would eliminate this wife who liked to live simply. Which would release him into a new world where the money was his own and the cat’s-paw woman he had used to obtain the money would also be his.

  It had been easy to anticipate what the Cowley fool would do. As soon as the car went down the road they would hurry down the beach and cross over to the bay side where Jeff had concealed the fish and equipment. Perhaps he came, unseen, to a place where he could watch the beach so that their timing would be perfect—as perfect as it was. His attack on me had been planned, and wholeheartedly murderous. It was a release for his tension, and a chance to look good in the eyes of the law, so he had been enthusiastic.

  I wondered what he thought as he looked at the dead face of his wife. Triumph? Sadness? A gnawing premonition that maybe it would all go wrong?

  There was no point in thinking about it. The red-faced man glanced at me. His eyes were mild, good-tempered, speculative. “A nice mess,” he said softly.

  “Can I have a cigarette, please?”

  He slid a pack of matches along the table to me. “Keep the deck,” he said.

  I lit a cigarette gratefully. “I should have a lawyer,” I said. I was surprised that my voice was so calm.

  “It might help,” he said. Help was pronounced he’p.

  “You live here. Could you recommend somebody?”

  “Lots of times for bad trouble they get somebody all the way out from Tampa. Some good criminal boys up there. Me, I say Journeyman right here at home is good as any imports. A fighter, that boy.”

  “Could I phone him?”

  “They’ll let you know as to when you can use a phone, mister.”

  “What’s going to happen next?”

  “Well, I sort of imagine Vernon will get the reports together and get hold of Carl Shepp—he’s the county prosecutor—and then they’ll take statements from your wife and the Jeffries fellow, and then they’ll likely as not drop in here and have a chat with you.”

  “I don’t have to talk without a lawyer, do I?”

  “You don’t rightly have to.”

  At two-thirty they brought me a fried egg sandwich and a coke. I was able to eat only half the sandwich. My red-faced guard ate the other half. At three they came trooping solemnly in, Vernon, a pimply female stenographer, a tall white-haired man who looked like a political poster, and a young man in a pink sports shirt with tanned powerful forearms, a face like a block of carved wood, alert eyes. Vernon glanced at me with bored professional distaste. The pimply girl stared with avid awe. The politico looked at me from stern and lofty heights of great principle. The husky young man looked at me with an alive, interested curiosity in his deep-set gray eyes.

  They took chairs and Vernon said, “Cowley, this is Mr. Carl Shepp, the county prosecutor, and this is his assistant, Mr. David Hill,” Vernon opened a folder in front of him and said, “Now we got to ask you some questions for the record. Anything you say may be used in evidence against you.”

  “May I have an attorney present, please?”

  “That’s your right,” he said reluctantly. “Well adjourn this session until you can locate an attorney and confer with him, Cowley.”

  “I don’t want to confer with him in advance. I’d just as soon answer anything you ask. I just want him to be here so he can hear what’s said.”

  “Roose,” he said to my red-faced guard, who was standing by the door. “There’s a list in my office of all the lawyers practicing in this area. Get it and—”

  “I’d prefer a man named Journeyman,” I said.

  Vernon gave Roose a look of disgusted malice. “All mouth, eh? Well, phone your pal Journeyman and get him over here.”

  While we waited, Vernon and Shepp sat close together and looked at the folder. Vernon turned the pages. From time to time they would whisper to each other.

  His name was Calvin Journeyman, and he came into the room at a full lope. The other men wore sports shirts in concession to the thick heat. Journeyman wore a rusty black suit and a pale yellow bow tie. The suit did not fit him well. Perhaps no suit could have fit him well. He had a small torso and great long spidery arms and legs. He had black hair combed straight back, a knobbly red face, and at least a full inch of sloping forehead. His eyes were the milky blue of skim milk. They flicked from face to face, came to rest on me.

  “Don’t let ’em lean on you, Paul,” he said. “Why’nt you folks clear out in the hall a minute, let me talk to my client?”

  “I’m willing to answer anything they want to ask without any previous instructions,” I said.

  “Go rassle another chair in here, Roose,” he said to the guard. He frowned at me. “Don’t like anybody to start off not taking legal advice. Anyway, we’ve got nothing to hide, like you say, so let it roll, Vern.”

  The chair was brought and he leaned back, lean fists under his chin, eyes busy. First they had me tell the story in my own words. Then Vernon took me back over it, point by point

  “You saw the shadow of the gun barrel?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What did you see when you looked back?”

  “I saw Linda aiming the rifle at Stella’s head.”

  “Did the dead woman have her eyes shut?”

  “Yes. She was on her back. The sun was bright.”

  “How far was the muzzle from the dead woman’s head?”

  “Five feet, perhaps. Maybe a little less.”

  “Did you give her cause—jealousy—to kill Mrs. Jeffries?”

  “No. I told you that it was Jeff and Linda who—”

  “All right. Are you familiar with that rifle?”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve fired it at cans. I’m not a good shot.”

  “How many times have you driven to Hooker with Mrs. Jeffries?”

  “Five or six times.”

  “Ever go into a place called the Crow’s Nest with her?”

  “Yes, sir. To kill time while the car was being greased.”

  “Did she cry while she was in there with you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What made her cry?”

  “Well, she was upset about the way Jeff and Linda were carrying on. It was spoiling our—”

  “All right. Did you on the night of October thirtieth see Mrs. Jeffries walking alone on the beach and leave the porch of your cottage and go and catch up with her and make improper advances to her?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Did you not insist that the Jeffries take their vacation at the same time and in the same place, and do all the planning therefore?”

  “No, sir. Jeffries wrote to Mr. Dooley and sent him the check and all.”

  “Did he not do that at your request?”

  “No, sir.”

  The questions went on in that vein, on and on. And at last they ended. Vernon looked at me. He looked at the stenographer. “Don’t take this down, honey. Cowley, you look bright enough. Just how in the hell do you expect to sell intelligent people a yarn like you dreamed up? I was there. I saw Jeffries’ reaction. I saw your wife’s reaction. I saw the way you looked. I know the way you acted when you went into the market there at Hooker. I’ve talked to your wife. She’s a fine girl and you’ve broken her heart. I talked to Jeffries. He’s just plain stunned by what you did. And you can still sit there and lie to us the way you do and keep a straight face. It is
n’t even a good lie. God help you.”

  Journeyman drawled, “You’re yappin’ at my client, Vern. Beats me the way you think you can tell people are lying. I remember three weeks ago Saturday you folding three eights because you thought I wasn’t lying about my flush. It’s as plain as the nose on your face those two smart operators have set my client up in a bind. Jeffries gets the money and gets this boy’s wife too. Know any stronger motives than that? Lord, a man doesn’t kill off a little honeybear just ’cause he can’t get aholt of it does he?”

  “Gentlemen, I hardly think we’re trying this case here,” Carl Shepp said ponderously. He stood up. “Vern, I’d appreciate your cleaning up those other details we mentioned and bringing the file over to my office in the morning. Dave and I will go over it and make a recommendation as to the specific charge.”

  They moved me to a cell. It was surprisingly large and clean, with heavy steel casement windows, a bed and chair bolted to the floor, a sink and toilet, a steel shelf for personal possessions. Journeyman followed me in. The door was slammed shut and locked and Journeyman was told to sing out when he wanted out

  I lay on the bed. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired. It felt good to get my bare feet off the cold floors. Journeyman went over and looked out the window, hands in his hip pockets, black suit jacket hiked up.

  “If you got two dollars or two million, you get the same effort from Journeyman,” he said. “But it’s nice to know. What have you got?”

  “I make eight thousand. I’ve got at least seven thousand equity in a house, a car worth about five hundred and about twenty-one hundred savings.”

  He came over and stood by the bed and looked down at me. “Paul, did you kill that woman? Now don’t answer right away. What would happen if lawyers in this country didn’t defend guilty folk? Whole judicial system would go to smash. I’ve seen a hell of a lot. If you killed her, it won’t prejudice me against you, boy.”

  “I didn’t kill her. If I had, I’d tell you. It happened exactly the way I told them downstairs.”

  “That story is no damn good,” he said.

  “It’s the truth. It has to be good.”

  “Being the truth doesn’t make it good. Being the truth doesn’t make it useful. That’s the damnedest sorriest story I ever heard. I can’t take a thing like that into court. You want to get out of this or don’t you?”

  “I want to get out of it.”

  “All right, then. Anything else we could use. The gun jammed. You were trying to free it. It was pointed at her head. You’ve been scared so bad you’ve been lying ever since.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Everything went black and when you woke up, there she was.”

  “No.”

  “It was a suicide pact and you lost your nerve.”

  I got up off the bed. I’ve always been mild. I didn’t feel mild then. I don’t think I’ve ever talked louder to a human being. “No! None of that stuff. Because you know what it means? It might possibly get me in the clear, or a short sentence or something, but it gets the two of them all the way in the clear. Can’t you understand that? They plotted it and did it and they want to get way with it. If I get clear I’ll have to go after them and kill both of them. If I get a short sentence it will be the same. They thought I was a damn white mouse. I’m not. The only thing I’ll go into court with will be the truth, and if you don’t want to take the case, somebody else will.”

  He waited a long time, until I had cooled down. “You just better think it over, Paul. Stick with this and the whole sovereign state of Florida is going to fall on your head like it fell off a cliff.”

  “So I can’t—”

  “Shut up. Your story is so wild they’re going to bring down some people to give you some tests and make sure you’re sane enough to try. Do you want to save yourself, or do you want to be some kind of martyr. Don’t answer now. Think it over. I’ve got some checking to do. I’ll see you sometime tomorrow.”

  After he left and I was alone I knew that he was both right and wrong. Right in that it was my testimony against theirs, and I was the introvert. They were the extroverts. On the stand I would sweat and stammer and shake, and should I say the sun would rise tomorrow, it would sound like a lie. Jeffries, rugged, clean-cut, saddened, manly, would convince them. I knew in advance how Linda would be. As my wife she could not be forced to testify against me. But she could volunteer her testimony. She would try to make it look as though she were standing by me. And would damn me, while she smiled sadly.

  I wondered why I had not thought of all this before—of how justice and truth are so unpredictably subject to the stage presence of the accused. I knew that Linda and Jeff had thought of it.

  Waking up from an illusion is always painful, and often something that takes a long time. My awakening from the illusion of Linda had been painful, but quick. It had happened in a fraction of a second, during that moment after her contrived faint when she put her hands on my arm and I had looked into her eyes. Living with evil does not make it more apparent. I could now look back over the years of Linda and see all the things that I had misinterpreted because I had looked at them through the distorting glass of my own gratitude to her.

  That night it was a long time before I could get to sleep.

  AFTER THE MORNING MEAL I WAS TOLD THAT Linda had come to visit me and had brought things for me. My first impulse was to tell them to have her leave the things and go. But I was curious about her, about how she would carry it off. Visiting me was something she had to do to preserve the illusion of the story the two of them had plotted.

  She came with clothing over her arm, with cigarettes and magazines and the portable radio. She wore a plain dark dress and very little make-up. The jailer was very courtly with her.

  “Now you can go right in, Mrs. Cowley, and I’ll be back in a half-hour. That’s all that’s allowed.”

  I sat on the bed and watched her. “Dear, they told me you could have clothes, but no belt or shoelaces, so I brought the slacks that don’t need a belt, and your moccasins. Here’s the socks and underwear. I’ll just put them right here on this shelf. I guess the cigarettes and magazines can go here too.” She put the clothing on the bed beside me and sat down in the single chair, smiled briefly at me and dug into her purse for her own cigarettes.

  “I’ve been talking to Mr. Journeyman, dear. The county is having two specialists come down from Tampa to examine you. They should be here this afternoon, they say. I think it’s for the best. You haven’t acted like yourself for months.”

  “Keep right on. It’s almost amusing, Linda.”

  “I’ve let everyone know, dear, that I’m going to stand by you no matter what you did. It was a terrible thing, but you were ill, dear. You didn’t know what you were doing. I’m not going to permit myself to be annoyed or hurt by the fantastic tale you’ve been telling them about me.”

  I looked at her soft tan throat. I could reach it in two quick steps.

  “I suppose Jeff is heartbroken,” I said.

  “He’s had a terrible shock. The funeral will be on Saturday, in Hartford. We’ve both had a terrible time with the reporters. They’ve been so persistent.”

  “But they got your story, of course.”

  “You can’t just refuse to say anything,” she said, a bit smugly. “Jeff is leaving tonight with the body, by train. He’ll have to stay up there a little while. There are a lot of legal details, I understand.”

  “The will, I suppose.”

  “Yes, and the trust funds. That sort of thing. You’d understand more about that than I would, Paul.”

  “Where are you staying?”

  “I’m still at the cottage. The rent is paid so I might just as well stay there, don’t you think? Or would you rather have me here in town, dear?”

  “You’re incredible, Linda. Incredible.”

  “I’m only doing what I think is right,” she said. “They say that if these men from Tampa say you are sane, the trial will
be in January. I think you ought to talk to Mr. Journeyman about our own financial arrangements, dear. He could probably arrange about having somebody up there put our house on the market and sell the car and so on. We’ll need money to fight this thing, dear, if they say you are sane.”

  “Doesn’t it mean anything to you, Linda? Didn’t it change something inside of you, pulling that trigger and seeing what it did to her?”

  She closed her eyes for a portion of a second. “Don’t be irrational, darling,” she said calmly.

  “How long have you looked for the big chance? How many years? What made you think this was it? You’re a damn fool, Linda. Even if it works, it won’t really work, you know. He knows what you did. And that means he knows what you are. Maybe you can hold him for a little while, but the years are hardening and coarsening you, Linda. And your looks are the only thing to hold him with. You haven’t got anything else. You did the actual deed, not him. He’ll think about that more and more as time goes by. I suppose you plan to marry him. Maybe, right now, he’s thinking how foolish that would be. It wouldn’t give him anything he hasn’t already had. It would be a nice joke on you, Linda. You set him free, and he leaves you flat. You wouldn’t dare object. You wouldn’t dare open your mouth.”

  She stood up abruptly. Her face was a mask. I saw that I had touched her. I saw the effort it took for her to relax again. Then she smiled. “Dear, you must get that fantasy out of your head. Poor Jeff. This tragedy has made him quite dependent on me.” She gave a subtle emphasis to the word “dependent.”

  “You better go, Linda.”

  She wouldn’t call the jailer. I yelled for him. He came, let her out. She turned in the open door and said, for his benefit, “Please try to get some sleep, darling. You’ll feel so much better if you get some sleep.”

  I cursed her quietly and the jailer looked at me with pained indignation and slammed the cell door with clanging emphasis. When they were gone I undressed, washed at the sink, put on the fresh clothing. It felt good to have shoes on.

  They took me to an office in the afternoon and gave me written and oral tests that lasted over two hours. A half-hour after I was back in the cell, Journeyman came in. He looked bitter. “You’re sane, all right. Know what you’ve got? A very stable personality and good intelligence.”